this seems great and all, but if your goal is to pare everything down to the party vs a dungeon, why not abstract the battle and start the camera rolling in the aftermath?
running a full combat with 100+ characters sounds like a nightmare
if you really want there to be a battle i would make extensive use of minions from 4e
Oh, I want the first session to be a huge fucking battle. I want the spectacle of mass death.
So, I'm prepared for it to go sideways but I want to at least challenge myself in seeing if I can do it.
I know the first thing I am doing for this battle is having the players do average damage instead of rolling damage, just to cut down on time.
I only played 3.5 before jumping over 4E to 5E, what are the minion rules?
Minions took one hit to kill, but are immune to "half damage on miss" type effects
They also did a static amount of damage rather than rolling for it
In the xp economy, I think they were worth 4 of a non-minion of the same level
Oh, cool!
I'll adopt the one-hit to kill for my zombies.
I won't do the xp thing because my games don't really use xp.
i'd recommend it for both the skelemans and the zombos honestly; what this allows you to do is roughly add 4 times the number of guys and let them be the bowling pins. that way you can sprinkle in your Ghouls and Golems and those can be credible threats without having to do HP bookkeeping for the skellies and zombies
i applaud the desire to attempt it but this could turn into something REALLY boring real quick if your nameless undead don't go down in one hit, and you're going to lose track of who has what HP in the miasma REAL quick (speaking from experience)
if you don't like that idea and want to keep the skeletons distinct, instead of making them minions glob them together into battle groups (stealing from Fantasy Flight/Genesys)
essentially make many creatures one "large" creature, similar to a swarm; add their HP together, give them vulnerability to AoE attacks, and have their attack bonus be the same (maybe give em an additional +1 or +2) and then just add the damage together
so instead of one skeleman taking a turn to roll a d20 at +4 with their gladius to deal 5 slashing, instead make a group of X skelemans attack at +5 or +6 but deal x * 5 damage (where x is the amount of skelemans in the swarm)
I can't find it, which pisses me off, but I wrote up some "mass combat-ish" rules when I was running a D&D game where I stole liberally from, like, 6 other rules systems.
One of the things I did was that each squad was a group of like creatures (dwarven veterans, zombies, etc.) that had a base attack value and got a small bonus from each other member of the squad that was still around. Then, when they rolled an attack high enough, they did bonus damage (stolen from firelinked starfighter weapons rules in Saga Star Wars). This allows them to be more dangerous than the individuals all rolling independently, without the potentially huge swings of the straight x * 5 method above. E.g., skeletons attack at +5, +2 for each additional squad member. They deal 5 damage, +5 for every 3 points by which the target's AC is beaten. A squad of 4 would attack at +11, and do somewhere between 5 and 20 damage on a hit, but more likely 5 or 10, reliably, which is dangerous but not immediately fatal. As the squad gets whittled down, its attack bonus decreases and its damage output drops, giving progress a little more fine-grained than up-and-fighting-or-down-and-dead.
To reduce math at the table, I wrote up little cards for each squad which had check boxes for the starting squad size and what their bonuses were at each step.
I didn't get to make full use of the rules, because my players were bastards and skipped the majority of the big set-piece battle in what is maybe my second favorite gaming moment ever.
I really want the physical book.... but I also recently convinced both of my groups to go all in and share the cost of a DND Beyond Membership & Legendary bundle. I need/want those discounts given for buying new digital content. And I DAMN sure don't want to buy the thing twice.
But.... poster sized map! (Is there a poster sized map?)
I do belive the new book Decent Into Avernus is out today. My copy is in the mail waiting for me.
I’m DM’ing LMoP and SKT for two separate groups of new players right now. It’s taken us almost a year to get to Thundertree in LMoP and about 5 sessions to get to the Dripping Caves after the first town in SKT.
I have ToA, Tyranny of Dragons, Tales from the Yawning Portal and a whole bunch of third party adventures on my shelf.
It would be silly to buy another book. I’ve got plenty of mater-oooh there’s a copy of the alternate cover art available? I’ll take that and the dice and a couple of the blind booster packs please!
In Descent they refer to every devil NPC as "it" and I'm not sure why that bugs me, sure they're monsters, but since devils are just people who are rules lawyers and assholes (with horrifying, infernal powers), if they're agender "they" should be more appropriate I would think
Or next session in a couple of days is probably the end of Curse of Strahd (they plan to go to the castle and not leave until they gave killed him, and i believe them capable of it). The last time they were there they got him low once, he ran away trying to get them to chase him but they didn't take the bait, then they destroyed the heart and fought him a bit later and got him low again and again he ran. They were out of all reduces at that point and choose to leave rather than try to find him. I had them level at that point from 9 to 10.
Several of them have taken gifts from the Amber Temple, one of them is evil now, and they have killed a vampirized Ezmeralda, and almost wholesale slaughtered the Valaki Vistani camp. Most of the elves from that camp came along with them the last time to act as a distraction and have been killed by Strahd. They haven't seen Rictavio in ages.
While they ran around killing some more vampire minions, i had Strahd put on his actual armor instead of fighting in a tuxedo the way he has been, get his great sword, and visit the Amber Temple to beef up himself too.
The plan is to open the session by having Strahd whisper each PC via special sending bribery offers to have them switch sides, each offer customized to appeal to the specific character in tempting ways. Going to have them write down an answer and a roll for either deception if they are lying or persuasion if they are telling the truth, but not tell me yet which it is.
Then later when they fight Strahd he'll indicate the time has come and then respond appropriately. I.e. if he believes they are going to switch he won't target then right away unless they keep fighting him after that point. I'm hoping to snare at least one because of the roleplay. Metagaming speaking, I'm sure none of the players would trust Strahd, but the characters might.
We ran the temptations right at start. Two said outright no to which Strahd replied "nobody said no to me!!!" and those two rolled a CON 15 save (one made it one did not) and the one that failed took 5 psychic damage because why not. Three replied yes, I've with a roll of 2 and two with a 19 and a 21. Pretty sure all 3 are lying, but not sure.
They then spent a bunch of time hanging out at the windmill taking strategy with Rictavio wine they ended up giving a special item to since none of them had the class/alignment combo to use it (holy symbol of ravenloft).
They ended up opting in for frontal assault. One if them flew over the wall and opened the drawbridge. Her turn undead poofed almost all the Strahd Zombies i had milling around in the courtyard. They ran in the front door activating the stone critters there. Not content with fighting that alone for some reason, one of them ready into the next room triggering the stone critters there too. They won, but not without taking a lot of AOE dmg. And then it was already late so no Strahd fight this week.
That Paladin lvl 20 ability seems insane.
For 10 minutes (100 combat rounds if I'm mathing correctly) you can make one missed attack a round hit regardless of what you roll, and you can spend your reaction to pass any saving throw that you failed
Sure, the advantage to CHA isn't bad, but it seems pretty mediocre compared to the combat bonuses.
Wrt calling demons "it": if they're not or no longer of any other race and lost all humanity then it kinda makes sense. Kind of like I call mosquitoes "it", even though I know they have a gender. Not sure how inhuman they are in the new book, though.
Wrt calling demons "it": if they're not or no longer of any other race and lost all humanity then it kinda makes sense. Kind of like I call mosquitoes "it", even though I know they have a gender. Not sure how inhuman they are in the new book, though.
Most of them are from monster manual or other previous books. New book does provide a relative size chart.
That Paladin lvl 20 ability seems insane.
For 10 minutes (100 combat rounds if I'm mathing correctly) you can make one missed attack a round hit regardless of what you roll, and you can spend your reaction to pass any saving throw that you failed
Sure, the advantage to CHA isn't bad, but it seems pretty mediocre compared to the combat bonuses.
The Bard 3 ability is much more gamebreaking, all things considered - it's available almost immediately, it's usable virtually at-will (3/day when you get it, but 4-5/short rest a couple levels later), it allows you to, functionally, charm any creature (and groups of creatures!) without any save or check, without using magic, and without the 'this creature knows you tried to charm it' rider, and it even bypasses the usual limitation on talking your way out of problems by obviating the need to share a language and works even on things that don't have a language!
There's basically no encounter - social, combat, or otherwise - that this character isn't going to immediately resolve by rolling persuasion/deception/intimidation off maxed CHA with double profiency and advantage, which virtually guarantees success on any DC below 'DM fiat'. (Oh, and just for the sake of completion, if you try to create scenarios this ability can't fix by saying 'these guys are already hostile, so you can't persuade them/have disadvantage on social checks', this subclass also gets free Calm Emotions at the same level to turn hostile creatures indifferent!)
I don't know why this feature got written at all - the Diplomat feat was way too powerful and disruptive to make it to print when they wrote that, and this is just a much better version of the same ability written to specifically bypass virtually all of the checks on the 'charm this guy and then talk him into doing what we want' strategy.
That Paladin lvl 20 ability seems insane.
For 10 minutes (100 combat rounds if I'm mathing correctly) you can make one missed attack a round hit regardless of what you roll, and you can spend your reaction to pass any saving throw that you failed
Sure, the advantage to CHA isn't bad, but it seems pretty mediocre compared to the combat bonuses.
The Bard 3 ability is much more gamebreaking, all things considered - it's available almost immediately, it's usable virtually at-will (3/day when you get it, but 4-5/short rest a couple levels later), it allows you to, functionally, charm any creature (and groups of creatures!) without any save or check, without using magic, and without the 'this creature knows you tried to charm it' rider, and it even bypasses the usual limitation on talking your way out of problems by obviating the need to share a language and works even on things that don't have a language!
There's basically no encounter - social, combat, or otherwise - that this character isn't going to immediately resolve by rolling persuasion/deception/intimidation off maxed CHA with double profiency and advantage, which virtually guarantees success on any DC below 'DM fiat'. (Oh, and just for the sake of completion, if you try to create scenarios this ability can't fix by saying 'these guys are already hostile, so you can't persuade them/have disadvantage on social checks', this subclass also gets free Calm Emotions at the same level to turn hostile creatures indifferent!)
I don't know why this feature got written at all - the Diplomat feat was way too powerful and disruptive to make it to print when they wrote that, and this is just a much better version of the same ability written to specifically bypass virtually all of the checks on the 'charm this guy and then talk him into doing what we want' strategy.
The fact that it is paired with cha mod per day calm emotions is god damned hilarious.
I don't totally have a problem with the function on this subclass but it needs to have a big warning label on it that says, "this is going to significantly change your game and make almost every combat the bard doesn't want to happen a social encounter"
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How long do you think it would take to finish Descent into Avernus if one played a four hour session once a week?
Does that 4 hours include the half hour BS session at the front of a game night?
If its level 1-10 and there are four players id bet about a year. Add a month or so for each additional player beyond 4. If you keep to schedule, and theres not a lot of derailing during the game.
Man, CHA skills sound super powerful in you peeps' games. In our campaign my Bard can roll whatever he wants, unless he rolls a crit 20 he isn't going to gab his way out of a situation where it doesn't make sense for talking to work.
Does anyone have any ideas for other features and hazards to be found in a fey garden (a 20 square mile garden, btw) that wishes to protect itself?
A pack of hounds from the Wild Hunt, perfectly friendly unless they smell broken promises on you.
A faerie ring of myconids.
Pixies and brownies having high tea 30 feet in the air. May get offended if you refuse an invitation to join them. Will definitely get offended if you say "thank you".
Goblin gardeners lovingly defacing a beautiful statue. If you try to stop them, the statue will retaliate.
MC Escher hedge maze. May meet other adventuring parties who have been wandering in there for centuries.
Young treant whittling humanoid bones. Does he see the party as a convenient source of fresh supplies?
Man, CHA skills sound super powerful in you peeps' games. In our campaign my Bard can roll whatever he wants, unless he rolls a crit 20 he isn't going to gab his way out of a situation where it doesn't make sense for talking to work.
The subclass we're talking about firstly gives you the ability to cast calm emotions for free cha mod times per day (you could at level 3 have 4 extra second level spells). This allows you to fireball the combat with an ability that immediately makes the enemy indifferent rather than hostile. Then the subclass gives you the ability to roll an inspiration die and pick that number of monsters that not only unquestionably understand you regardless of its understood or spoken languages or even if it understands any language, but that you have advantage to influence. Going from indifferent to downright friendly is not a hard DC at that point.
This thing could walk up to a pack of angry wolves roll a few dice and have a nice friendly pack of wolves that don't want to bother the party anymore. That's like expressly what the subclass we're picking apart does.
Man, CHA skills sound super powerful in you peeps' games. In our campaign my Bard can roll whatever he wants, unless he rolls a crit 20 he isn't going to gab his way out of a situation where it doesn't make sense for talking to work.
I mean
Consider a scenario where a combat is about to start and the bard wants to talk his way out with his silly bard ability
and you go 'well, it doesn't make sense for talking to work here because they're already hostile and looking for a fight'
and he goes 'yeah but I'm gonna cast Calm Emotions first. now they're indifferent.'
and you go 'well, they're [whatever]. do you speak [language]?'
and he goes 'I don't have to, I can communicate with anybody with this thing'
and you go 'okay yeah but they've got an angry [animal/monster] with them, it doesn't have have a language because it's not smart enough to talk'
and he goes 'well, it's not actually angry, because I hit it with Calm Emotions, and also my ability specifies that they understand me magically and I have advantage on checks to influence them even if they don't have a language'
and you go 'okay, but also consider that you're dealing with a group, so you'll need to convince more than just one guy'
and he goes 'yeah, no problem, this works on [rolls the d8] 5 of them. If there's more than that, getting most of the group to stand down should stop the rest from attacking (or make them trivial to beat). Or I could just use the ability again - it's only a bonus action, it doesn't require concentration, and I can use it five times per short rest if I want.'
and you go 'alright, fine, do your thing, but you'll have to roll really well'
and he does whatever RP underpins the roll and makes his roll and gets a 14 - which is the average result for a d20 roll with advantage - and then adds his modifier, which is a massive +13 because he's level 9 and he's got a +5 CHA mod and skill expertise giving him double his proficiency bonus, which is +4.
So he rolls a 27 on his social check and you're gonna...tell him he fails anyway because even after all that he needed a nat 20 because apparently the DC was 33?
I submit that this is unlikely, and if you did, it'd be pretty obvious to everyone at the table that what you're actually saying is 'this thing fails even though you rolled really high because I don't want it to work'. You can always shut down a thing by fiat if you want, but it's a bad practice that people generally don't like, and this ability is written in such a way that there are very few options for throwing plausible wrenches into it that are not simple 'it doesn't work because I said so' fiat.
Man, CHA skills sound super powerful in you peeps' games. In our campaign my Bard can roll whatever he wants, unless he rolls a crit 20 he isn't going to gab his way out of a situation where it doesn't make sense for talking to work.
I mean
Consider a scenario where a combat is about to start and the bard wants to talk his way out with his silly bard ability
and you go 'well, it doesn't make sense for talking to work here because they're already hostile and looking for a fight'
and he goes 'yeah but I'm gonna cast Calm Emotions first. now they're indifferent.'
and you go 'well, they're [whatever]. do you speak [language]?'
and he goes 'I don't have to, I can communicate with anybody with this thing'
and you go 'okay yeah but they've got an angry [animal/monster] with them, it doesn't have have a language because it's not smart enough to talk'
and he goes 'well, it's not actually angry, because I hit it with Calm Emotions, and also my ability specifies that they understand me magically and I have advantage on checks to influence them even if they don't have a language'
and you go 'okay, but also consider that you're dealing with a group, so you'll need to convince more than just one guy'
and he goes 'yeah, no problem, this works on [rolls the d8] 5 of them. If there's more than that, getting most of the group to stand down should stop the rest from attacking (or make them trivial to beat). Or I could just use the ability again - it's only a bonus action, it doesn't require concentration, and I can use it five times per short rest if I want.'
and you go 'alright, fine, do your thing, but you'll have to roll really well'
and he does whatever RP underpins the roll and makes his roll and gets a 14 - which is the average result for a d20 roll with advantage - and then adds his modifier, which is a massive +13 because he's level 9 and he's got a +5 CHA mod and skill expertise giving him double his proficiency bonus, which is +4.
So he rolls a 27 on his social check and you're gonna...tell him he fails anyway because even after all that he needed a nat 20 because apparently the DC was 33?
I submit that this is unlikely, and if you did, it'd be pretty obvious to everyone at the table that what you're actually saying is 'this thing fails even though you rolled really high because I don't want it to work'. You can always shut down a thing by fiat if you want, but it's a bad practice that people generally don't like, and this ability is written in such a way that there are very few options for throwing plausible wrenches into it that are not simple 'it doesn't work because I said so' fiat.
I threw like one of the only plausible scenarios that this ability wouldn't work against last night and it was literally plot fiat. The only reason it wouldn't have worked is because all the enemies are arcane constructs acting under the control of a specific artifact you need to interrupt or destroy. Which like... that explanation only works so many times.
Like I can see that subclass working in a game with a really weird aim to be minimal combat and a bunch of socialization and skill challenges and like political intrigue, but any kind of normal dungeon crawling adventure is just gonna go immediately off the rails with that thing in the party.
Like if you've got that in your party you've gotta do a shit load more prep to have any and all your monsters ready to be full fledged possibly recurring NPCs. You gotta be ready for every mook ork or goblin you throw at the party to become someone the party talks to a whole bunch.
You gotta be ready for every mook ork or goblin you throw at the party to become someone the party talks to a whole bunch.
Wait you people aren't doing that already?! What else do you do with your 30 hours of prep for each session?
On another note I'm reading through Avernus and prepping it to start running it at the end of the month and this campaign is delicious.
I won't say anything further because at least one of my players reads this thread, but I was sort of indifferent to the theme of the campaign before and now I'm on board for everything this thing is about.
So wait, is the RAW on Calm Emotions that, once it wears out, whatever you're convinced your target sticks? Otherwise all you're doing is delaying the combat 60 seconds, surely.
So wait, is the RAW on Calm Emotions that, once it wears out, whatever you're convinced your target sticks? Otherwise all you're doing is delaying the combat 60 seconds, surely.
"When the spell ends, the creature becomes hostile again, unless the GM rules otherwise."
Hostile doesn't mean violent, and there's no reason that it should be un-convinced of the reasonable, non-magical convincing arguments you made while it was calm once it stops being calm, nor would being hostile have any effect on whether it was e.g. still intimidated/deceived by you after you passed the appropriate check because you had advantage on it.
And that whole line of argument presumes that you need Calm Emotions in the first place, when the reality is that A)you're gonna be using this on non-hostile creatures on a regular basis, B)hostility does not carry any RAW rules baggage and is only relevant if the DM tries to make it relevant as a check on this ability (and Calm Emotions only came up because it obviates this potential check), and C)unless the DM tries to outright argue that you cannot influence a hostile creature at all you can probably still use this ability to muscle through the check anyway since the advantage you get from it will cancel out any disadvantage you have from creature attitude and leave you making a straightforward roll with your double-proficiency skill, which you will still likely succeed on.
I dunno, all of it this making it sound like the only thing stopping a charisma character from convincing gravity to stop working is the language barrier and a -5 to their roll.
So, after my DM had some family issues he didn't want to do Dark Sun, so we're going back to our old campaign setting for Part 2 with our original characters. At the end of Part 1 we saved the world etc and we also have the option to swap characters if we want.
One of the other players decided to retool his character (formerly a homebreelw dragon rider thing) as an Oath of Devotion Paladin, which puts him directly in contrast to my own Paladin. Here's the thing: he rolled obscenely well, and thanks to a lucky random effect he picked up last campaign (putting him at 22 Strength) he has better stats than me across the board. I'm having trouble figuring out anything I'll be able to do that he wouldn't do better.
Part of me is thinking that might be kind of interesting: as of Part 2 my Paladin will be ~45 years old, so definitely not in his prime, while he's an Aasimar that's just hitting his stride at 300. So I could see some interesting RP of "I'm not a kid anymore, am I still useful or should I just pass the torch?" On the other hand, I don't know if I personally can deal with that feeling that I'm playing a worse version of another PC.
Anyone have any experience like this that could offer some advice? I could always stick with my Paladin and change character later if it becomes a problem, but it's easier to swap now.
"Depends on whether you can deal with it personally" is as much as I can offer. I found I get discouraged and unhappy with my own character if it feels like I'm playing second fiddle to someone in every role, much as I wish I didn't and just enjoyed the game.
I had a similar issue just last year with my Curse of Strahd game.
I was playing a dexterity fighter who was taking the role of a rogue/thief and another player changed to a rogue character who had darkvision, better movement (tabaxi), and expertise in every skill I had proficiency in. He also had the ability to do magic damage while we were at a point where almost every enemy was either resistant or immune to my nonmagical damage. At first I thought I was going to be okay but within a few sessions I very much resented as a player not being able to shine at any task. One of the aspects of D&D is being a heroic figure and when you're unable to point to a single thing that you contribute that someone else couldn't the game is worse for it, imo.
Of course, if you're a better man than I you may be okay with it. vOv
I use rolled stats but I also juice em so everyone's relatively strong, and the peaks kinda get lost in the roll of the dice. I'll also totally let someone reroll stats if they have somehow retained totally useless garbage.
An interesting option, should you wish to push the age and experience vibe... go for a different skillset. If he's definitely going to be the physical combat monster see if you can trade out a feat/ASI for skilled and get a bit more skill training than the other Paladin. Play up the fact you're older and have a wider breadth of experience than this younger buck. If you're really into leaning on that idea, and have the 13 dex picking up a level of rogue to get 2 more skills and some expertise would roll into the theme well.
The issue here isn't rolled stats, it's rolled stats and playing the same class as someone else. Even with point buy you're guaranteed to be stepping on someone's toes doing that.
I'd just change characters now - if you're not willing to make a scene and veto his new character :hydra:
Yeah, I opted for Point Buy over Rolling because I have bad luck. I don't fault him for the rolled stats and it totally makes sense for him to go Paladin, so I don't think he's trying to be malicious.
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I can't find it, which pisses me off, but I wrote up some "mass combat-ish" rules when I was running a D&D game where I stole liberally from, like, 6 other rules systems.
One of the things I did was that each squad was a group of like creatures (dwarven veterans, zombies, etc.) that had a base attack value and got a small bonus from each other member of the squad that was still around. Then, when they rolled an attack high enough, they did bonus damage (stolen from firelinked starfighter weapons rules in Saga Star Wars). This allows them to be more dangerous than the individuals all rolling independently, without the potentially huge swings of the straight x * 5 method above. E.g., skeletons attack at +5, +2 for each additional squad member. They deal 5 damage, +5 for every 3 points by which the target's AC is beaten. A squad of 4 would attack at +11, and do somewhere between 5 and 20 damage on a hit, but more likely 5 or 10, reliably, which is dangerous but not immediately fatal. As the squad gets whittled down, its attack bonus decreases and its damage output drops, giving progress a little more fine-grained than up-and-fighting-or-down-and-dead.
To reduce math at the table, I wrote up little cards for each squad which had check boxes for the starting squad size and what their bonuses were at each step.
I didn't get to make full use of the rules, because my players were bastards and skipped the majority of the big set-piece battle in what is maybe my second favorite gaming moment ever.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
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The book is thick! Like really thick.
I really want the physical book.... but I also recently convinced both of my groups to go all in and share the cost of a DND Beyond Membership & Legendary bundle. I need/want those discounts given for buying new digital content. And I DAMN sure don't want to buy the thing twice.
But.... poster sized map! (Is there a poster sized map?)
I’m DM’ing LMoP and SKT for two separate groups of new players right now. It’s taken us almost a year to get to Thundertree in LMoP and about 5 sessions to get to the Dripping Caves after the first town in SKT.
I have ToA, Tyranny of Dragons, Tales from the Yawning Portal and a whole bunch of third party adventures on my shelf.
It would be silly to buy another book. I’ve got plenty of mater-oooh there’s a copy of the alternate cover art available? I’ll take that and the dice and a couple of the blind booster packs please!
HERE
We ran the temptations right at start. Two said outright no to which Strahd replied "nobody said no to me!!!" and those two rolled a CON 15 save (one made it one did not) and the one that failed took 5 psychic damage because why not. Three replied yes, I've with a roll of 2 and two with a 19 and a 21. Pretty sure all 3 are lying, but not sure.
They then spent a bunch of time hanging out at the windmill taking strategy with Rictavio wine they ended up giving a special item to since none of them had the class/alignment combo to use it (holy symbol of ravenloft).
They ended up opting in for frontal assault. One if them flew over the wall and opened the drawbridge. Her turn undead poofed almost all the Strahd Zombies i had milling around in the courtyard. They ran in the front door activating the stone critters there. Not content with fighting that alone for some reason, one of them ready into the next room triggering the stone critters there too. They won, but not without taking a lot of AOE dmg. And then it was already late so no Strahd fight this week.
That Paladin lvl 20 ability seems insane.
For 10 minutes (100 combat rounds if I'm mathing correctly) you can make one missed attack a round hit regardless of what you roll, and you can spend your reaction to pass any saving throw that you failed
Sure, the advantage to CHA isn't bad, but it seems pretty mediocre compared to the combat bonuses.
Wrt calling demons "it": if they're not or no longer of any other race and lost all humanity then it kinda makes sense. Kind of like I call mosquitoes "it", even though I know they have a gender. Not sure how inhuman they are in the new book, though.
Most of them are from monster manual or other previous books. New book does provide a relative size chart.
The Bard 3 ability is much more gamebreaking, all things considered - it's available almost immediately, it's usable virtually at-will (3/day when you get it, but 4-5/short rest a couple levels later), it allows you to, functionally, charm any creature (and groups of creatures!) without any save or check, without using magic, and without the 'this creature knows you tried to charm it' rider, and it even bypasses the usual limitation on talking your way out of problems by obviating the need to share a language and works even on things that don't have a language!
There's basically no encounter - social, combat, or otherwise - that this character isn't going to immediately resolve by rolling persuasion/deception/intimidation off maxed CHA with double profiency and advantage, which virtually guarantees success on any DC below 'DM fiat'. (Oh, and just for the sake of completion, if you try to create scenarios this ability can't fix by saying 'these guys are already hostile, so you can't persuade them/have disadvantage on social checks', this subclass also gets free Calm Emotions at the same level to turn hostile creatures indifferent!)
I don't know why this feature got written at all - the Diplomat feat was way too powerful and disruptive to make it to print when they wrote that, and this is just a much better version of the same ability written to specifically bypass virtually all of the checks on the 'charm this guy and then talk him into doing what we want' strategy.
The fact that it is paired with cha mod per day calm emotions is god damned hilarious.
I don't totally have a problem with the function on this subclass but it needs to have a big warning label on it that says, "this is going to significantly change your game and make almost every combat the bard doesn't want to happen a social encounter"
Does that 4 hours include the half hour BS session at the front of a game night?
If its level 1-10 and there are four players id bet about a year. Add a month or so for each additional player beyond 4. If you keep to schedule, and theres not a lot of derailing during the game.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
A faerie ring of myconids.
Pixies and brownies having high tea 30 feet in the air. May get offended if you refuse an invitation to join them. Will definitely get offended if you say "thank you".
Goblin gardeners lovingly defacing a beautiful statue. If you try to stop them, the statue will retaliate.
MC Escher hedge maze. May meet other adventuring parties who have been wandering in there for centuries.
Young treant whittling humanoid bones. Does he see the party as a convenient source of fresh supplies?
The subclass we're talking about firstly gives you the ability to cast calm emotions for free cha mod times per day (you could at level 3 have 4 extra second level spells). This allows you to fireball the combat with an ability that immediately makes the enemy indifferent rather than hostile. Then the subclass gives you the ability to roll an inspiration die and pick that number of monsters that not only unquestionably understand you regardless of its understood or spoken languages or even if it understands any language, but that you have advantage to influence. Going from indifferent to downright friendly is not a hard DC at that point.
This thing could walk up to a pack of angry wolves roll a few dice and have a nice friendly pack of wolves that don't want to bother the party anymore. That's like expressly what the subclass we're picking apart does.
I mean
Consider a scenario where a combat is about to start and the bard wants to talk his way out with his silly bard ability
and you go 'well, it doesn't make sense for talking to work here because they're already hostile and looking for a fight'
and he goes 'yeah but I'm gonna cast Calm Emotions first. now they're indifferent.'
and you go 'well, they're [whatever]. do you speak [language]?'
and he goes 'I don't have to, I can communicate with anybody with this thing'
and you go 'okay yeah but they've got an angry [animal/monster] with them, it doesn't have have a language because it's not smart enough to talk'
and he goes 'well, it's not actually angry, because I hit it with Calm Emotions, and also my ability specifies that they understand me magically and I have advantage on checks to influence them even if they don't have a language'
and you go 'okay, but also consider that you're dealing with a group, so you'll need to convince more than just one guy'
and he goes 'yeah, no problem, this works on [rolls the d8] 5 of them. If there's more than that, getting most of the group to stand down should stop the rest from attacking (or make them trivial to beat). Or I could just use the ability again - it's only a bonus action, it doesn't require concentration, and I can use it five times per short rest if I want.'
and you go 'alright, fine, do your thing, but you'll have to roll really well'
and he does whatever RP underpins the roll and makes his roll and gets a 14 - which is the average result for a d20 roll with advantage - and then adds his modifier, which is a massive +13 because he's level 9 and he's got a +5 CHA mod and skill expertise giving him double his proficiency bonus, which is +4.
So he rolls a 27 on his social check and you're gonna...tell him he fails anyway because even after all that he needed a nat 20 because apparently the DC was 33?
I submit that this is unlikely, and if you did, it'd be pretty obvious to everyone at the table that what you're actually saying is 'this thing fails even though you rolled really high because I don't want it to work'. You can always shut down a thing by fiat if you want, but it's a bad practice that people generally don't like, and this ability is written in such a way that there are very few options for throwing plausible wrenches into it that are not simple 'it doesn't work because I said so' fiat.
I threw like one of the only plausible scenarios that this ability wouldn't work against last night and it was literally plot fiat. The only reason it wouldn't have worked is because all the enemies are arcane constructs acting under the control of a specific artifact you need to interrupt or destroy. Which like... that explanation only works so many times.
Honestly it should really be the only proof anyone needs.
Like if you've got that in your party you've gotta do a shit load more prep to have any and all your monsters ready to be full fledged possibly recurring NPCs. You gotta be ready for every mook ork or goblin you throw at the party to become someone the party talks to a whole bunch.
Wait you people aren't doing that already?! What else do you do with your 30 hours of prep for each session?
On another note I'm reading through Avernus and prepping it to start running it at the end of the month and this campaign is delicious.
I won't say anything further because at least one of my players reads this thread, but I was sort of indifferent to the theme of the campaign before and now I'm on board for everything this thing is about.
"When the spell ends, the creature becomes hostile again, unless the GM rules otherwise."
And that whole line of argument presumes that you need Calm Emotions in the first place, when the reality is that A)you're gonna be using this on non-hostile creatures on a regular basis, B)hostility does not carry any RAW rules baggage and is only relevant if the DM tries to make it relevant as a check on this ability (and Calm Emotions only came up because it obviates this potential check), and C)unless the DM tries to outright argue that you cannot influence a hostile creature at all you can probably still use this ability to muscle through the check anyway since the advantage you get from it will cancel out any disadvantage you have from creature attitude and leave you making a straightforward roll with your double-proficiency skill, which you will still likely succeed on.
One of the other players decided to retool his character (formerly a homebreelw dragon rider thing) as an Oath of Devotion Paladin, which puts him directly in contrast to my own Paladin. Here's the thing: he rolled obscenely well, and thanks to a lucky random effect he picked up last campaign (putting him at 22 Strength) he has better stats than me across the board. I'm having trouble figuring out anything I'll be able to do that he wouldn't do better.
Part of me is thinking that might be kind of interesting: as of Part 2 my Paladin will be ~45 years old, so definitely not in his prime, while he's an Aasimar that's just hitting his stride at 300. So I could see some interesting RP of "I'm not a kid anymore, am I still useful or should I just pass the torch?" On the other hand, I don't know if I personally can deal with that feeling that I'm playing a worse version of another PC.
Anyone have any experience like this that could offer some advice? I could always stick with my Paladin and change character later if it becomes a problem, but it's easier to swap now.
[edit] And yeah, eff rolling stats.
First advice is don't roll for stats, because it avoids this from the get-go. A little late for that, however.
Have you considered life as a Blackguard of Jealousy?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I was playing a dexterity fighter who was taking the role of a rogue/thief and another player changed to a rogue character who had darkvision, better movement (tabaxi), and expertise in every skill I had proficiency in. He also had the ability to do magic damage while we were at a point where almost every enemy was either resistant or immune to my nonmagical damage. At first I thought I was going to be okay but within a few sessions I very much resented as a player not being able to shine at any task. One of the aspects of D&D is being a heroic figure and when you're unable to point to a single thing that you contribute that someone else couldn't the game is worse for it, imo.
Of course, if you're a better man than I you may be okay with it. vOv
I use rolled stats but I also juice em so everyone's relatively strong, and the peaks kinda get lost in the roll of the dice. I'll also totally let someone reroll stats if they have somehow retained totally useless garbage.
An interesting option, should you wish to push the age and experience vibe... go for a different skillset. If he's definitely going to be the physical combat monster see if you can trade out a feat/ASI for skilled and get a bit more skill training than the other Paladin. Play up the fact you're older and have a wider breadth of experience than this younger buck. If you're really into leaning on that idea, and have the 13 dex picking up a level of rogue to get 2 more skills and some expertise would roll into the theme well.
I'd just change characters now - if you're not willing to make a scene and veto his new character :hydra: